Cafuné
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "His fingertips hover over her. Atoms of breath he might count on one hand are all that separate his skin from hers, but he doesn't touch her." One shot, set between Always (4 x 23) and After the Storm (5 x 01).


Title: Cafuné

WC: ~1200

Rating: T

Summary: "His fingertips hover over her. Atoms of breath he might count on one hand are all that separate his skin from hers, but he doesn't touch her." One shot, set between Always (4 x 23) and After the Storm (5 x 01).

A/N: _Cafuné _(Brazillian Portuguese)—to run one's fingers through a lover's hair.

* * *

She's a mess. An achingly beautiful mess, and having her here—seeing her like this—might just hurt more than walking out.

He feels every mark like it's his own. Like it's his blood pounding out through broken vessels to pool dark and strain just beneath the too-thin surface of skin. Like every movement screams through him and it's his own body mapped all over with angry, red, weeping places.

His fingertips hover over her. Atoms of breath he might count on one hand are all that separate his skin from hers, but he doesn't touch her.

His heart slams irregularly against his ribs. High and low and side to side like it's come loose entirely. Blood knocks relentlessly against his temples and drains away, leaving him cold. _Cold. _

His fingers shake. His hand moves over her. Above her. Still, he doesn't touch her. Still, there's half the distance and half that again between his skin and hers.

He traces the outline of her, over and over, until there must be a path, whether he can see it or not. There must be the shape of her, carved into the still air of the middle of the night. Spine and hip. Swell and concavity. There must be the shape of her, written in the breath that mingles between them because she's here.

She's _here. _Not dead because he left her. Not in a thousand pieces because she needs to know more than she needs to live. More than she needs him or tomorrow or the next breath.

She's here. An achingly beautiful mess that he's too afraid to touch.

She's quiet. Her body is a riot of angry bruises and interrupted skin. Scars he's lived with, but he's just now getting to know. So many broken places that he couldn't count them all if he had a hundred years. More every time his eyes open and close, it seems. Every time his gaze sweeps over her, he finds another. But she's quiet now. Peaceful like he's never seen her.

Not once in four years has he seen her at rest like this. Her cheek meets the pillow like they're the oldest of friends. Her fingers spread wide and her palms sink into the linens. Into softness and warmth. Her body is expansive. Sprawling and pressed into the mattress in a dozen different places, every one heavy with contentment. With how _present _she is, even in sleep.

She's _here _and he aches with it. He closes his eyes against the tired old word, but nothing else will do.

He aches.

* * *

Sleep takes him somehow. It takes him and nightmares come. A shot rings out. She falls through green grass and black earth and blue sky. Her eyes are wide and blank and her mouth gapes in a silent scream. Shocked, she falls endlessly. Pale skin blooms with blood and she shatters. The pieces of her skitter and spin away and dissolve into dust that clogs his throat and coats his tongue.

He follows. He tries. He gives himself over to gravity, but his limbs grow roots. They turn into heavy, dark, dead things and he doesn't see how he'll ever move again. How he can do anything for the rest of his life but howl and ache and break apart himself. How he'll be anything but dust ever again.

He doesn't see how, but he claws his way up. He grits his teeth and looks on as his fingertips grind away to blood, then bone. As he scrabbles higher and higher into cruel blackness and pulls himself awake.

His eyes open and she's there. She's _there_. Her spine rises and her shoulders round as she breathes, deep and peaceful. His fingertips rest on her pillow, breath alone between her skin and his, close—_close_—but breath between them, even in sleep.

He wants to touch her. Needs to, even though he tells himself that it's enough. That weight of her beside him and warmth hovering over her skin are enough to know she's here.

But he needs to touch her. He needs to know she's whole underneath. The woman he loves beneath the beautiful mess. He needs his skin on hers to believe that she's not in pieces.

His fingertips hover over her. He approaches, atom of breath by atom of breath, and she turns. She shifts in sleep and cries out softly. Lines of pain run together, head to toe, like the very thought of his skin on hers is enough to make her cry out.

He loses her then. She goes. She ebbs away and every bruise—every broken place—pulses black and sinister. They swallow down even the dim light until she's nothing. Pain and negative space. Until she's gone.

He chokes on a sob. Spends an airless lifetime rigid with grief and terror and then it's over. The lines release and the cry gives way to easy breath. To a sigh of contentment. Her chin tips down and she smiles as her cheek meets the pillow again. Her lips part and she comes to rest. She's here.

A dark sweep of hair tumbles across her cheek like an afterthought. Like some wicked, unruly part of her that won't let him forget that he wants to touch her. That he needs to.

It dances across her cheek and catches on the next breath. It rises and falls and tickles her nose. She stirs again, peaceful this time. An easy, slow turn of her head, this way and that, to send the dark sweep tumbling over the soft angle of her jaw. Tumbling down to brush his fingertips.

He goes still. Rigid now with disbelief. With the miracle of this. A soft, unruly curl tumbling down to catch his fingers. He holds his breath. Stamps the instant in memory and believes.

She's here. A beautiful mess, but whole.

His fingers curl back. They wind around and around. They bury themselves in darkness and let it fall away. They drift up and back. Hook one curl around pale crescent of her ear and find another and another and another. They grow bold, fascinated with every strand, and he believes.

* * *

She wakes with a sigh. With a murmur of thanks and his name on her lips. A question before her eyes are even open.

She bows her head and it hurts. He knows immediately that it hurts. His fingers still. They're buried in her hair, even now, and he doesn't know how long it's been. Minutes or hours. Years or always. Since they both came to be, maybe. It feels like that. It feels just like that.

His fingers still, but her hand winds its way up between them. She winces and he tries to pull back. Tries to free his fingers and give her space. Time to get her bearings or whatever she needs, but she grabs hold of his wrist.

"Don't," she says. Her eyes close tight. That hurts her, too, and he's silent with too many apologies. "Don't stop." Her fingers trip along his skin, her thumb brushing his. Encouraging. Pleading, maybe.

"It doesn't . . ." His breath catches. His voice is the farthest thing from steady. "Doesn't hurt?"

Her eyes open then. With her head tipped down, she peers up at him through long lashes and smiles. She _smiles_, peaceful like he's never seen her. Not even at rest. Not even just now.

She rolls her shoulders, steady and deliberate, even though it hurts. She rises up to press closer to his palm. She gives the barest shake of her head. "Doesn't hurt. Feels good."

His fingers move. They set to work again. They bury themselves in darkness and let it fall away and she smiles.

"Don't stop, Castle," she says again. "Feels good."


End file.
